Fan force

Nicholas Smith, 30, donned the fearsome Darth Vader mask; David Robles, 35, lay slain as a Jedi master taken out by Vader; and Sarah Werner celebrated her 28th birthday dressed as Robles' Jedi student who exchanged light saber blows with the evil, heavy-breathing villain in black.

Lori Gilbert

Nicholas Smith, 30, donned the fearsome Darth Vader mask; David Robles, 35, lay slain as a Jedi master taken out by Vader; and Sarah Werner celebrated her 28th birthday dressed as Robles' Jedi student who exchanged light saber blows with the evil, heavy-breathing villain in black.

"You will always be safe on the dark side," Smith said during the duel. "You will come to the dark side, or you will die."

Werner responded with, "I won't. Never. I will not give up anything."

The three are students in Robert Lucchesi's film class at the Alan Short Center, and spent a day at Stockton's Zaps Zone laser tag facility, which, with its black walls flecked with dots of color and paintings of planets, provided the ideal setting for the "Star Wars" fan movie they're making.

"Vader's Gambit," which takes place five years before the time of the original 1977 film, "Star Wars," is the biggest project to date for the six-person class, which was started a year ago.

"The idea came for the film, because the students are all 'Star Wars' fans," Lucchesi said. "I showed them fan films on the Internet and that inspired them. They asked, 'Can we make one?' "

The answer for Lucchesi was an indisputable yes.

"One of my real goals is to prove to the general population that this population is capable of far more than what other people would think," Lucchesi said. "They're just as talented, just as creative."

Expressing that imagination is part of the mission of the Alan Short Center, an arts-based day program for adults with developmental disabilities, and the film class is just the latest avenue.

"Most of our classes are client driven," Alan Short Center director Margarita Garcia said. "What do they want to do? Sometimes it does match with the staff's talent."

Lucchesi, 41, worked with disabled adults for about five years before joining the staff at Alan Short as a staff support member two years ago. When a teaching position arose, Garcia asked Lucchesi what he would like to teach, and the long-time film enthusiast was off and running with a filmmaking class.

He uses some of his own equipment, depends on contributions and donations, and prowls flea markets and thrift stores for clothes and props.

For the "Star Wars" film, he also received costumes from the website starwarscostumes.com, which responded to his hand-written note.

Werner's Jedi costume came from the company, as did Smith's realistic Vader costume. He landed the coveted role, not because he has any Vader tendencies, but because of his 6-foot-2 height. He also played Superman in a film the class made about a boy who dreams of becoming a super hero as he stares at a figurine in a collectibles store.

Another of the class's first film ventures is a music video called "Jose's Space Song." Conceived by a former teacher at Alan Short, it's the story of a boy with Down syndrome whose language skills are such that other people can't understand him. He keeps hearing, "Come to planet Love where you'll be accepted."

Jose builds a space ship, flies off to planet Love and finds everyone there has Down syndrome and they all understand him perfectly.

Those and other short films made by the class were shown in a loop on Lucchesi's computer at Stockton-Con last August.

"People stopped and were looking," Lucchesi said. "They marveled at what we were able to create with little or zero budget and a little ingenuity."

The response inspired him and his six-person class to think bigger.

The "Star Wars" fan film revolves around a planet that holds the secret to the balance of the Force. Robles and Werner play Jedi knights trying to outrun Darth Vader and the rest of the empire when they land on the planet. They want to hold on to the planet, but have to fight off Darth Vader to do so, as he understands the power it could bring.

The filming at Zaps Zone was for the climax of the film that Lucchesi expects will run about 30 or 40 minutes. Filming and editing will continue into the upcoming semester at the school.

Although Lucchesi is providing much of the guidance for the movie, the film is collaborative. The dialogue, for example, is ad-libbed. Lucchesi explains the scene, and lets the actors create lines that make sense to them.

It's part of what makes the class so valuable.

"They exercise their creativity," Garcia said. "The most important lesson is they learn to make choices. They work as a group to come up with ideas and there's a lot of compromising going on. There's a lot of back and forth, a lot of teamwork. That's the most important exercise, other than their creativity."

For viewers, whom Lucchesi hopes will include the Stockton public and film festival judges, the movie might open some eyes.

"It says, I think, that they can do it," Garcia said. "A lot of times our students, this population, is seen as incapable of being able to do something like this. I think it's proof that, yes, they can. These are their ideas. The plots are their ideas. They have a say in what it looks like. They sit and edit it and each one gets to voice their opinion. They offer suggestions on how to improve the film."

None of it comes as a surprise to her.

"It's wonderful seeing what they are capable of, especially when they've been told most of their lives, 'You can't do this,' " Garcia said. "For us to give them the tools they need to be able to do it is phenomenal. The feelings you get, seeing the expressions on their faces when they do it, is priceless."